To: Scrapps who wrote (18864 ) 5/27/1999 3:12:00 PM From: Feathered Propeller Read Replies (5) | Respond to
Alert: Bill 602P Proposes USPS Collect 5 Cents for Every E-MailBill 602P will permit the Federal Government to charge 5 cents surcharge on every e-mail delivered by billing Internet Service Providers at source.The consumer would then be billed in turn by the ISP. Washington, D.C. lawyer Richard Stepp is working without pay to prevent this legislation from becoming law. The U.S. Postal Service is claiming that lost revenue due to the proliferation of e-mail is costing nearly $230,000,000 in revenue per year. You may have noticed their recent ad campaign "There is nothing like a Letter." Since the average citizen received about 10 pieces of e-mail per day in 1998, the cost to the typial individual would be an additional 50 cents per day, or over $180 dollars per year, above and beyond their regular Internet costs. Note that this would be money paid directly to the U.S. Postal Service for a service they do not even provide. The whole point of the Internet is democracy and noninterference. If the Federal Government is permitted to tamper with our liberties by adding a surchage to e-mail, who knows where it will end. You are already paying an exobitant price for snail mail because of the bureaucratic inefficiency. It currently takes up to 6 days for a letter to be delivered from New York to Buffalo. If the U.S. Postal Service is allowed to tinker with e-mail, it will mark the end of the "free" Internet in the United States. One Congressman, Tony Schnell, has even suggested a twenty to forty dollar per month surcharge on all Internet Service above and beyond the government's proposed e-mail charges. Note that most of the major newspapers have ignored the story, the only exception being the Washingtonian which called the idea of e-mail surcharge "a useful concept whose time has come" (March 6th 1999 Edition). Don't sit by and watch your freedoms erode away! Send this e-mail to all Americans and tell your friends and relatives to write to their Congressmen and say "NO" on Bill 602P. freerepublic.com
